The Have a Quickie Blog

I got a little stuck this week.

Circling each other in an impressive duet of morning rituals, Mark and I discussed a blog entry. He suggested lack of affection in married couples. I felt more inclined to write about sex and sexism. I was, afterall, pouring Cheerios and making tuna sandwiches for our two children while Mark prepared for his grown up job as a psychologist at a psychiatric hospital. Might I add, we had not kissed good-morning when we woke up that day.

 But neither topic felt good, perhaps (no definitely) because I was feeling the effects of sexism while he was feeling the fallout–a lack of affection. This is a problem endemic to all heterosexual couples and yet how often is it discussed?

So, let’s look at it for a moment. Sex and sexism and lack of affection. What totally not-fun but important, interconnected concepts.

For a hetero couple to pretend they have ducked the sexism bullet is just delusional. It’s a nasty, ugly, icky and insidious institution that slams girls with expectation of how to be from the moment they are born (pink anyone?), and it sets boys up to perceive women in all sorts of dehumanizing ways (porn anyone?). And that’s just the superficial beginning. None of us has escaped unscathed–not the female CEO with the househusband and not even the all-things-equal couple with a hyphenated last name and a kid with an androgenous first name. 

Let just say that sexism affects each of us, male or female, in unique and personal ways, so I can only tell you correctly how it affects me.

 I’m a stay-at-home mother with a (finally) thriving freelance writing career and a delightful husband with a thriving clinical practice. I’ve spent most of the past eight years at home raising our two children, and while I probably wouldn’t have done it any other way, every single day I have regrets about how I am living my life all wrong. It’s an almost tediously familiar story, but that’s because it’s the true story of so many women who can’t figure out how to balance kids and career. We feel like crap about ourselves as we are not enough. Not enough career woman. Not enough mother. Not enough wife. Then, we take a moment to sit down and paint our toenails (heaven forbid we’re not enough pretty) and we look around our house and realize we are also not enough house cleaner or cook or gardener or _____ (fill in the blank with what you don’t do well).

Quick disclaimer. Mark is good. Damn good as father, as housekeeper, as husband as lawn mower and, occasionally as the servant of my commands, the maker of my wishes. But that doesn’t mean it’s never sexist around here. For a small example, I can’t let the clean laundry sit there in a pile, whereas Mark often thinks the laundry looks quite comfortable in a fresh fluffy heap on the couch. Okay, there are things that I don’t notice like the weather-stripping that’s falling off the door and knocking us in the head every time we enter the house. But let’s save that for his blog entry called “Women and Weather Stripping.”

My point is this. As a mother and career women I take on so many roles and often, in worrying about doing them right, I end up overdoing them. I need my work to be just so. I’m a self-declared slob and still, I need my house to be just so. I need my kids worlds to run right. And while Mark bears much of our financial burden (something never to be belittled) I don’t think he feels the “just so” pressure that I do. Certainly not in the way I do having been raised by a “just so” stay-at-home mother then learning that a woman is less-than for not having a “just so” job.

Now for the affection part. Who said it? Dr. Phil? I don’t remember, but the line is something like this, “You want to turn a woman on, guys? Then wash the dishes.” Amen.

While I’ve been moping around the house this week feeling like no one cares about the crud on the counter or the stench rising from the garbage like visible fumes in a cartoon strip, I really didn’t want to kiss Mark. I wasn’t fullblown mad at him, but I was mad about sexism. I was pissed off that as a girl I’d been raised to care about something that he’d been mostly raised to let his mother do. And then last night…

 I came home after an evening helping a friend pick out a tattoo (She’s thinking of getting a peace sign but is worried that it’s going to look bad when her butt sags.) to find that Mark had picked up my cleaning cudgel and did the crusty counters, the floors, and the laundry that had slumped from its comfy pile on the sofa to a sprawl of underwear on the floor. I kissed him. I said thank you and meant it. It’s so small. It’s so stupid. And it’s so meaningful. I’m talking about when one partner notices what the other partner needs  and without moan or groan delivers.